


Getting Down And Out

by verucasalt123



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Child Neglect, Childhood Memories, Community: spn_j2_xmas, Cooking, Episode: s10e12 About A Boy, Established Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Food Issues, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Kissing, M/M, Sibling Incest, Song: Shake It Off (Taylor Swift), Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 01:59:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17013423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verucasalt123/pseuds/verucasalt123
Summary: “Hey, Sam, take a breath, we got all the time in the world”, Dean tells him, which of course isn’t true, is never true, but Sam needs to relax if he’s going to start using complete sentences.





	Getting Down And Out

**Author's Note:**

> This story is for eatdirt69 for this year's SPN/J2 Secret Santa fic exchange. I went with your prompt for a coda to About A Boy and tried to incorporate your likes of weechester food insecurity, Dean POV, and hurt/comfort. I hope this is to your liking. I could not resist sprinkling Taylor Swift lyrics here and there due to the tie-in with the episode :)

They make it almost all the way through Wyoming before they stop driving. It’s only late afternoon but they started at dawn; food and sleep are calling. 

The light-hearted mood and shared smiles lasted the entire three and a half minutes of the pop song Dean suddenly didn’t mind. There was some idle chat, then comfortable silence, then silence that went on far too long to stay comfortable. 

Now they’re parked for the night. Sam’s more freaked out than Dean expected, he thinks as he unloads his duffle in a room with two beds. It’s not like they _always_ share a bed on the road, but...he doesn’t ask any questions, and Sam doesn’t offer any explanation, so. 

At least the diner’s nice. One of those places with a twenty page menu and big glass cases showing off the desserts. Sam skips his usual salad in favor of pasta and chicken in a cream sauce that probably has more saturated fat than the rack of ribs Dean’s enjoying.

Sam perks up during dinner, asking about Dean’s and Tina’s stories of the Royale Motel. 

“I don’t know if you remember it. You were maybe five or six? It was a shitty neighborhood, last one to get the streets plowed I guess. We were there close to a week, I can’t believe we didn’t all lose our minds.”

“Wait, I always thought I imagined this, but did Dad let us draw on the bed sheets and pillow cases?”, Sam asks, eyes already lit up.

Dean starts to laugh, grateful that Sam’s pulled something happy out of this memory. “Hell yes he did, there’s only so much Go Fish and I Spy a man can take. Least they kept the heat on, or he would have had Bobby drive all the way out there to rescue our asses.”

There’s a little more smiling and laughing and normal conversation. Sam orders biscotti and ice cream, Dean lets him think he’s talking him into getting himself some apple pie. The pie is fucking delicious, and Dean eats half of Sam’s ice cream, and by the time they get back to the motel they’re both so full they can hardly move. Sugar-drunk and exhausted, Dean slips into his own bed after a perfectly respectable good night kiss and is asleep before Sam gets out of the shower. 

Nine more hours in the car and they’re pretty much back where they’d been the day before. Sam heads off to parts unknown as soon as they get to the bunker, but that’s fine. Sam always needs time after such a long drive, and the emotional punch of this particular hunt just piles it on. Dean’s happy to leave some space between them, whatever Sam needs ( _as long as Dean agrees that it’s what Sam actually needs_ ) until he shakes off what’s bugging him. Or works it out in his head, or whatever it is that he does when he needs time alone after a case like this. He needs some quality time with his memory foam, anyway.

It hadn’t exactly been a walk in the park for Dean, either. Seeing his arm without the mark had given him some pretty crazy ideas. Don’t change back, he thinks, inwardly laughing at the notion now. A ridiculous suggestion, looking back, but it was _something_. Sure, they’re desperate for a solution to this Mark of Cain bullshit. But not that desperate. 

The concept of growing up all over again is lingering in his mind. Dean’s not going back to high school, applying for colleges, making different choices - all the chances that Tina probably has in front of her now. Her opportunities are not the same as his, and he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want them to be. He’s a hunter. As much as he likes to tell stories of steel-nerved heroism, he was sulky and afraid and easily distracted at fourteen - maybe not as much as the average kid that age, but still. A kid’s a kid, even when he’s been trained to be a soldier.

Dean dreams about that pop song, dreams that he shakes his arm really hard and the Mark falls right the fuck off like it’s a bug or something. Lands on the floor and tries to slither away but he steps on it while he’s dancing around one of the well-appointed and windowless hallways of Cuthbert Sinclair’s invisible mansion. 

It’s only seven thirty when he wakes up, but there’s noise coming from the kitchen. No clue why Sam would be out of bed this early but Dean’s going to find out when he goes to get his coffee. Which is already brewing, he can smell it. 

Sam’s facing the opposite direction when Dean enters the kitchen, which gives him a chance to objectify his brother momentarily. He’s wearing sleep pants that Dean’s pretty sure are going on ten years old and the Canyon Valley tank top he kept from that fat-sucking day spa case. He’s put a decent amount of weight back on this year and he’s...well, he’s really hot, just fucking gorgeous, but they don’t say that kind of shit so Dean appreciates the view until Sam catches him. 

“Oh, uh, you already started the coffee, thanks”, Dean says, heading toward the mugs, but he doesn’t get far. Sam has him pushed up against the other counter before Dean takes a full step. 

This feels good - so good and right but at the same time it’s not, it can’t be, because they don’t really do this anymore, the “ _let’s fuck right here on the kitchen counter because I can’t wait fifteen seconds to get onto a softer surface_ ” thing. Sam’s cock is definitely in on the action, Dean can feel it pressing against his hip, and Dean’s into it too, but he knows. Something’s off and he’s waiting for it when Sam moves his hands to Dean’s chest. 

“Feel so fucking good, I can’t get enough of it”, Sam whispers. “Your body, Dean. Your body is beautiful and it’s perfect and I never tell you but I love it. I love all of it. I love this”, he breathes out as his fingers brush over the Mark, “everything, all of you, no matter what.”

And honestly, that’s enough of that because though Dean’s already hard and would love for Sam to fuck him right here on the kitchen counter because he can’t wait fifteen seconds to get onto a softer surface, he really needs Sam to do some more talking before they do any fucking at all. There’s an explanation here, because they also don’t talk like that, ever, and there’s something going on..

“Hey”, he says, pushing Sam away in the gentlest way possible, “hey, hey, talk to me, Sam. Look at me. Come on.”

A less practiced eye would see a six and a half foot tall man who’s incredibly turned on. Hard cock, blown pupils, quick and shallow breaths, a hint of perspiration at his brow. Dean sees all that but he sees what’s underneath as well - not fear, exactly, but some kind of anxiety, and a very large volume of words that are waiting to come tumbling out into the air as soon as the air feels safe enough to receive them. 

Dean leads his brother into the next room, sits him down, pulls a chair directly in front of him, and reminds himself _again_ that they need a goddamn sofa in here. 

“All right, Sammy. You wanna get busy, I’m all over it. But first, I’m gonna need you to spill. What’s going on?”, Dean asks, adding “Other than the fact that you’re totally hot for me?”, just to see if it gets a laugh. 

It doesn’t. But it gets a smile, and he’ll take it. 

Sam starts a little slow, but a picture starts to emerge.

“So in Oregon. In- in Pendleton, at the motel. When you came in and you were, uh, you were like you were-” 

“Hey, Sam, take a breath, we got all the time in the world”, Dean tells him, which of course isn’t true, is never true, but Sam needs to relax if he’s going to start using complete sentences.

“Okay. so I remember what you looked like when you were fourteen. And that’s exactly what you looked like. But I was only nine or ten, and you didn’t look like that to me. You looked bigger. Stronger. Just perspective, or hero worship, or whatever. Right?”

Dean nods, he’s not supposed to confirm what Sam’s saying, just that he’s following. 

“You weren’t small for your age. You were just small, because you were young, and when I saw you there, I wanted to protect you. Any other kid I saw who looked like you, I would want to protect, not bring with me to kill a witch.”

“Well”, Dean starts, but it’s really not necessary. 

“No, it’s fine, I know. You were just so much smaller than ten year old me thought you were. And I didn’t get it, until the witch - we were in the kitchen and she grabbed your arm-”

Dean suppresses a shiver at the memory. He experiences so much in this life that would send a non-hunter directly around the bend, but not much skeeves him out like an unwanted touch. When that touch is from a fucking witch, it’s a hundred times worse. And Sam’s got a point, for all his bravado Dean had felt more vulnerable in a smaller body. 

“She called you _scrawny_ , and I got it, and it took me a little while to process it, but that’s what I didn’t know about you, what I never noticed when I was a kid. You were skinny.”

And Sam’s not finished, but Dean gets a chilly feeling like he knows where this is going. 

“You and Tina were trading stories about how to get by when you don’t have enough food. And I remember not having a lot of food, but I don’t remember not having enough. And I know I wasn’t skinny. You were a skinny kid but I never was. I mean, when I was a teenager and I started getting tall so fast, yeah, but that was different. And I don’t get - I don’t understand - I mean, how could I not-”

The pieces are all falling into place for Dean, and he wants this to stop right now. Whatever else Sam has to say, it doesn’t need to be said, Dean doesn’t want to hear the words. But Sam’s breath is coming a little shallow again, so he does what Sam needs instead - reaches over and takes his hand. Pulls it up and kisses across his knuckles, looks up to catch him directly in the eyes, and says, “It’s okay, Sammy. I know, but - if you need to say it-”

Sam closes his eyes. He takes a breath, lets it out, and continues, “You sacrificed everything for me. You gave up so many things when we were kids so I could have what I needed. And I’m sorry you felt like you had to do that. I’m sorry you were ever put in a position where you’d have to make those decisions. I think I knew you went without food so there would be enough for me, but I never consciously thought about it, and I never acknowledged it, even when we were adults. And I should have. And I’m sorry that I didn’t. And I’m sorry for, just, I’m sorry, Dean, I…”, Sam trails off there and that’s enough, because if Sam makes him cry, Dean’s gonna have to do something mean to him later and he really doesn’t want to. 

Instead, he climbs into Sam’s lap and kisses him slow, easy, gentle. Not the way Sam likes to kiss when they’re in bed, but the way Dean likes to kiss when he wants the kiss to say it’s gonna be alright. He’s very, very good at this. He takes his time with it, and they stay there for a good long while until they’re rudely interrupted by Dean’s stomach growling. Which probably shouldn’t be funny considering the conversation they just had, but it makes them both laugh anyway. 

“I was going to make you pancakes”, Sam says, smiling, his lips kiss-swollen and his face stubble-burned. “That was the whole plan for this morning, pancakes and fucking, until you had to turn it into a Nicholas Sparks novel.”

Dean gets out of the chair, but leans back down so he’s right in Sam’s face. “You mean attempted pancakes, use of fire extinguisher, extraction of yet another promise that you’ll never try to cook again?”, he asks as he walks away. He’s going to make the damn pancakes. 

Sam yells after him, “You forgot to deny knowing who Nicholas Sparks is. You’re slipping, Dean.”

By the time the pancakes are done, Sam’s messing with Dean’s phone. 

“I downloaded Taylor Swift’s album for you, the one with that song you like. She’s got four more, so if you like this one…” Sam doesn’t even finish the sentence, just sits there pouring syrup and flashing Dean his best dimpled grin. 

Dean likes this phone, so he doesn’t throw it. He also still wants to have that sex after breakfast, so he smiles back and very politely gives Sam the finger. 

It’s been a tough couple of years for the two of them, and this one looks like it’s gonna be shitty too. A different kind of shitty, but still. Even if they come with emotional confessions, Dean will happily take as many lazy pancakes and sex days as he can get. They don’t have to save the world, or a town, or a person, or a Biblical curse, every fucking day. Just each other.


End file.
